‘It is the most consequential decision I ever made.’

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on his decision last year not to take up the Supreme Court nomination of Obama nominee Merrick Garland and to state that the president elected in 2016 should fill the open seat on the Supreme Court. The Senate on April 7 approved the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the seat.

‘It’s like a form of hazing.’

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan on one of the duties she’s had as the court’s junior member: open the door when someone knocks during justices’ internal deliberations. After more than six years on the job, Kagan gave the assignment to Justice Neil Gorsuch, who arrived in mid-April.

‘A suicide mission.’

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, on Democratic plans to defeat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. No Democrat has won a statewide race in Texas since 1994.

‘When we assume the power to alter the original public meaning of a statute through the process of interpretation, we assume a power that is not ours.’

From the dissenting opinion of Judge Diane Sykes of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Hively v. Ivy Tech, a ruling that changes the meaning of the word sex in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include sexual orientation in cases of employment discrimination.

‘I saw a human head once. We were walking and then there was a rocket and people died. I’m trying to forget it, but you can’t forget something like that.’

Mohammed Sheni, 14, of Aleppo, Syria, on his memories of the battle in that city.